Project Quilting 10.5 Abecedarius

This was a hard challenge for me this week.  Abecedarius: where the first word of every line of a poem follows the alphabet.  Or in other words, do something with the alphabet. I like words on quilts, but wasn't sure what to do with so many word options.

I got to thinking about names on quilts. My husband loves names on quilts.  This is our usual conversation when ever I make a quilt for someone:

Hubby:  Are you going to put their name on it?

Me: Yeah, it will be in the label.

Hubby: Are you sure you don't want to put their name real big on the front? In the piecing? or glued on there in fabric?

Me: This design doesn't call for their name real big on the front.

Hubby: Oh, well I think it will make it look good with their name on the front.  Real big.

So in honor of that I decided to go with a name...  real big... on the front.  I just had to pick a name.  Kid names are the easiest, nieces and nephews are always easy to make quilts for, but which one?

I still wanted to keep it somewhat on the theme of Abecedarius,  I didn't want to do the whole alphabet though.  Just wanted to focus on one letter.  I do love to work in rainbow color.  So I was going to do "R is for Rainbow" and "R is for (insert name here)". So whose named started with R? there were several, but one jumped right out at me because her name also had the same number of letters as the colors in the rainbow:  Raelynn.  Perfect.  

R is for Rainbows and Raelynn

I love the geometric block letters designed by Quiet Play.  They are nice and big and blocky, just what I was looking for.  They finish at 6 inches.  I just needed a rainbow to go around them. So I got to designing.  Each letter would represent a color in the rainbow and have three shades of that color in strips above and below it.  And since the letters were going to have a white background they could be in a cloud.

  I used excel for this one.  I do have EQ8, but haven't mastered making my own layouts yet and since I was pressed for time I went with what I know I could design with pretty quick. 

All the strips are 2.5 inches and I needed three of each color  plus an extra red and purple for the ends x 2.  That is 46 strips.  I decided to use the Accuquilt cutter that was sent to me as part of being an Island Batik Ambassador.  I used the die that cuts 2.5 strips and cut out all my strips lickety split and they came out perfect. I used to think I was already quick enough cutting 2.5 inch strips with my rotary cutter, but this was super nice and I did it in about the same time and they came out perfect, no shaving off 1/8 of an inch when the ruler moves.

The quilt measures 46 x 72. 

My husband loves this quilt.  It has all three things he thinks a quilt should be.

1. Has to be big

2. Has to have a name on it - on the front.

3. Has to have blue in it.

Make sure to check out all the other entries  HERE to see how everyone else interpreted the theme.  Scroll down till you see all the square thumbnails and at 1 pm central time vote for your favorites by clicking on the red heart in corner.

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Island Batik Magnificent Mini and Project Quilting 10.3

Week three of Project Quilting lined up perfectly with the timing of my Magnificent Mini project for Island Batik Ambassadors.  

The theme for week three of Project Quilting was "Bigger than a bread box".  We could create anything quilt related as long as it was bigger than a bread box.  

The February Island Batik Ambassador challenge this month is "Magnificent Minis". 

Ambassadors were asked to make a quilt smaller than 24 x 24 inches.

I had several ideas to choose from and even printed and cut out two different paper piecing patterns, but my heart kept thinking of Valentines day coming up and the fact that I don't have any valentine themed quilts at all.  Can you imagine that?  I didn't believe it at first, but after rooting through the quilt cabinet, there were no hearts to be found, so I put away the paper piecing and decided to get festive.  

I drew up a quick heart block that measured 3.5 inches and started pulling pink batiks.I grabbed two of the pinks from the stash builders that were sent to me from Island Batik, and grabbed the rest from my own Island Batik Stash.

- FYI -

From one 5 inch square you can get two 3.5 inch hearts and

from one 2.5 inch strip WOF you can get eight 3.5 inch hearts

    I still didn't have enough pink, so I added some purples and reds, all from older Island Batik fabric lines I already had. Isn't it wonderful how all the fabric lines play so well together, even the older lines. Island Batik fabrics never go out of style.  

Check out that half inch sashing and cornerstones.  I love tiny quilt pieces!

For the background I used the white batik fabric that was supplied to me as an Ambassador.  

I had never sewn with solid batik fabric before.  I love sewing with white backgrounds in my quilts so this was super nice to have that batik feel throughout.

And we can't leave out Hobbs Batting.

  I had two smaller pieces of 80/20 left over from a previous project and sewed them together to create the perfect size batting, once it was quilted you couldn't even tell the batting was pieced.

I am calling this one Candied Hearts.

As far as the actual size... well I got the "Bigger Than a Bread Box" part right for project quilting, but I'm actually 2 inches longer one side for the Island Batik February project.

It measures 26 x 21. In my defense, it did start out as less than 24 inches tall, but I had to add another row of hearts.  I couldn't have four on the top and three on the bottom. My brain needs symmetry and technically since the width is 3 inches shorter than 24 inches I do have the correct square footage...or inchage... is that a word?   

Thanks for stopping by.  Check out all the other Island Batik Ambassadors this month to see what minis and fabrics they are playing with.

And around 12pm Central time you can start voting HERE for your favorite Project for week three of Project Quilting.

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Project Quilting 10.1 - Hope Springs Eternal

It is that time of year again!  Project Quilting time! Where anyone who wants to join in the fun is challenged to make a quilt in a week based on that week's theme.  Check out all the details at  Kim Lapecek's website.

The first theme for season ten is "Hope Springs Eternal".  I will admit my first thought was Star Wars related.  I kept thinking of the line, "Rebellions are built on hope," from the movie Rogue One, but no ideas came on how to make that into a quilt.

My next thought was about how living water brings hope.  Out of the darkest darkness living water can spring forth and give hope and life to things around it.  I envisioned the colors of the quilt first, with the outer edges being black and fading into blue to represent the water and then bright colors to represent flowers.

Next was to come up with a pattern.  I was going to create my own swirling vortex of water, but I couldn't come up with a swirl pattern I liked.  Who knew it would be so hard to free hand draw a swirling whirlpool.  So I decided to go a with pattern I already knew that could still convey the colors I had in my head, The swirly triangle.

Not sure if that is the real name, but I got the pattern from an Irish Folding website a long time ago and made it bigger to fit my needs.

For each shade of color I used six different fabrics except for the blue, which has seven.  I thought about making a large quilt, but by the time I picked the pattern it was halfway through the week, so I opted for a table topper and actually got to bed on time every night this week.

It measures 30 x 27 inches.

If you haven't already, make sure you check out all the other entries this week HERE and vote for your favorites.  Voting starts at 12pm Central time.  To vote click the heart in the top right corner.

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Project Quilting 9.3 Bold and Brave

Quilt Measures 60 x 60 inches.

This project had me stumped as to what to make.  So I recruited the help of my kids.  I asked, "If you were looking at a quilt that was bold and brave, what would it look like?"

My oldest son said, 
"Maybe it could be like a shield quilt,

Or a lion,

Or maybe a superhero,

Or maybe a superhero football king in space!"

So I asked, "How about a Super hero football king in space with a pet lion?" 

My son agreed, but my mind was remembering the Geometric Lion pattern from Violet Craft.  I showed him a picture of it and he said, "That would be cool. Do you think you can do that in a week? It's just triangle things..."  

That was Monday afternoon.  So I bought the pattern online to check it out.  Later that evening after work I cut out all the pattern pieces, 126 of them, and was about to go with something else when my Hubby and my other son walked in the sewing room. They saw me staring at the pattern and all the pieces and both confidently said, "You can do that in a week." So I did.

I sewed about 4 to 5 hours every night and all day Saturday to finish him.

I took pictures of my progress each night before I hit the hay.

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday 

Thursday

Friday - The goal was to gave the whole top finished by Friday. Didn't quite make it, but got pretty close. 

Saturday - I took my cat the vet in the morning and after that I sewed the whole day to finish this guy.

Sunday, I put the last binding stitch in at 12:02 am, so technically he was finished on Suday.

It was over cast this morning and about to rain. But I was able to get a picture of him outside before heading to church.

Go check out all Bold and Brave entries here:

http://persimondreams.blogspot.com/2018/02/93bold-and-bravechallenge-3-of-project.html

At 12pm CST you can vote for your top favorites.

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Project Quilting 9.1 - Hometown Proud - Murrells Inlet, SC

The first theme for Project Quilting this year was Hometown Proud.

I first thought about doing my current hometown, we have a great art festival each year in April, called Artfileds and some great re-vitalization going on downtown, but I wasn't sure how to turn that into a quilt.

Then I thought about my hometown as a kid and where we spent a lot of time as a family and I realized I still spend a lot of time there as an adult with my own kids.  Then it hit me what to make.

I decided to make a quilt showcasing the Marsh from Murrells Inlet, SC.

I didn't actual live in Murrells Inlet, but I did live in Myrtle Beach which is right next door, and I have spent many Saturdays throughout my life in Murrells Inlet. 

I started by going through my batik scraps and pulling out my greens, blues, and browns.

Pieced them all together horizontally in different strip widths.

Trimmed them up.

Added a couple egrets, there are always white egrets at the marsh, and quilted it up.

The water at my marsh isn't this blue, but the grasses do get a nice bright green in the summer.

Go Here to vote for your favorites:
Project Quilting 9.1 Hometown Proud

Voting opens at 1pm EST

The quilt measures 40 x 20.

These next few pictures are what I used for inspiration.

One of my favorite places to be.  This is at the end of the Jetties at Huntington Beach state park.  Marsh on one side, ocean on the other.

The marsh grass is super green right after the rain.

There are always birds to be seen

This day I was lucky enough to see Roseate Spoonbills.

They only come for a short time to visit our area and then move on.

This was us,the canoe too, on Christmas Eve last year.

Collecting oysters, clams, and crabbing.  We tried fishing a little too, but no luck that day with fish.

The Marsh grass isn't as green in the winter, but its still just as muddy.

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